I haven't been able to find any sites that go into detail about the differences of the Federalist Party and the Democratic Republican Party. I was hoping you guys here would he able to help me with that.

I've been reading about the Second Boer War, another war that Britain thought would be over very quickly, but dragged out for 3 years or so, so why did they think WW1 would be over so quickly? Obviously it's difficult to compare the Boer War and WW1, because of the different environment and the whole Guerrilla Phase of the Boer War that took up a lot of it, but surely it would cause some doubt for a quick war between great powers?

It is fairly common for black Americans to share the last name of presidents, eg Washington, Jefferson, or Roosevelt. Why is this? I assume it is due to slavery, when many of the presidents were large slave owners, and the name has been passed down. If that's the case, though, why would some names like Roosevelt be common, and why are some presidential names that should have owned slaves be uncommon, such as Madison or Adams?

Was listening to Dian Rhems show and a caller stated that he grew up in a German Pennsylvania town during WW2 and several escaped German POWs made it to the town and worked as day laborers. Caller stated the government knew and kept a watch on them but let them be. Any truth to this?

I also know of American playwright Eugene O'Neill taking up residence at hotels for long periods of his life, and famously both being born and dying in a hotel room. There's also Wes Anderson's film The Grand Budapest Hotel which depicts a writer spending a long period of time at the eponymous hotel as a way to find inspiration. I'd like to note that in Grand Budapest and Eloise these hotels are (or were) very luxurious and therefore must have been more expensive.

These days I don't think I've heard of anyone, celebrity or acquaintance, that lives for long periods of their life in hotel rooms. What was the era that it was economically viable and culturally common to live permanently in hotels, especially ones as luxurious as depicted in fiction? How was this viable and why did people choose hotels over other living arrangements? Was this lifestyle only viable for celebrities and the upper class? What caused this type of lifestyle to fade away? What was this lifestyle like in comparison to renting apartments or buying houses during the same period?

I suspect it was more of a tactical reason for their defeat but it was still quite outrageous that an empire that size with a relatively large and advanced military lose out to a much smaller country.

Hey guys, I have some Norman Ancestry, suffice to say I'm very, very interested in Norman military history. I have several questions, if you could answer them it would be greatly appreciated.

1. I do know that Rollo made a concerted effort to adopt a Frankish styled government, but how soon did the Danes adopt Knighthood (for a lack of a better word)? And who is the first documented Knight in Norman history?

2. Were the majority of Norman Knights of pure Scandinavian stock? Or were they of both Scandinavian and Gallo-Frank/Gallo-Roman ancestry? More importantly, would this actually be an issue when a young noble was Knighted?

3. Could you explain the training cycle for your average Knight? When did they begin their training, when were they typically Knighted, what tactics did they typically focus on? How capable were they on foot, compared to horse back?

4. Compared to other Knights of their day, how did they compare?

Thanks

Historically speaking, how sure are we that what is in the texts today was what was originally written down? I know it was translated, but what are the odds there was major content changes?

I've noticed that in many conflict zones around the world they can trace their recent history to the British Empire and many of the conflicts revolve around border disputes brought about during the dismantling of the Empire. Are there any relative successes? It seems that conflict was sown everywhere during the breakup.

I see that "official" records for land speed started in the early 1900's and given the technology available, how were the times verified?

Devices in cars, optical traps, radar all don't seem available, possible or verifiable.

Also, I am aware that you can calculate average speed with a simple calculation but not top speed - and to be honest that still points to two people with stopwatches.

So my question is basically about early 1920 times where the cars were starting to go pretty fast.

The Romance portrays Liu Bei ignoring the pleadings of his generals and advisors and starting a campaign against Sun Quan culminating at Xiaoting, but is this the real reason, or a primary reason, why the campaign was launched?

18th century people looked to the Ancient age for hints, ideas, and they re-invented the Ancient Greek Pankration sport in the form of boxing. But they left out kicks and grapples - original Pankration was very much like MMA. Calling the new sport pugilisme also suggested it is fists only.

Is there any reason why?

Another thing is, it is called a gentleman' sport. Should it be interpreted the other way around: not because it was soft and gentle, but precisely because it was raw and brutal enough to be useful for the purpose of helping soft, comfortable, sheltered gentlemen "man up"?

Are the two connected? They were less interested in real world self defense situations and more focused on punches precisely because they saw punches a better way to make soft young gentlemen "man up"?

Hearing about the Two-State Solution for the mess in Gaza and Israel made me wonder why Palestine was made to be no longer a state in the first place despite it still apparently having land by the old borders.

If not, what is the general consensus on when the Roman Empire really fell? Was it during the Heraclian dynasty in 7th century or maybe in 1453 when Constantinople was captured?